Van Huyssteen J.W. (editor) Encyclopedia of Science and Religion

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nomological character of causality, if two events

are causally related then they always fall under

some strict deterministic law. On the principle of

the anomalism of the mental there are no psy-

chophysical laws, so there are no strictly determin-

istic laws relating mental events and physical

events as causes and effects.

These three principles are prima facie mutually

inconsistent. Seemingly, if mental events cause

physical events or physical events cause mental

events, then they are related by strict deterministic

laws so it is then false that there are no psy-

chophysical laws. On the other hand, it seems that

if there are no psychophysical laws then either

mental events do not cause physical events, and

physical events do not cause mental events, or not

every pair of events related as cause and effect

falls under strict deterministic laws. Nevertheless,

Davidson aims to reconcile the three principles by

his anomalous monism.

Anomalous monism entails that mental events

are identical with physical events. Every mental

event is identical with some physical event, but

not every physical event is identical with a mental

event. Mental events are causes of physical events

because they are physical events, and physical

events cause physical events. Nevertheless, David-

son rejects the thesis that there exist psychophysi-

cal laws. According to nomological monism every

mental event is a physical event, and there are

psychophysical laws. Davidson accepts the first

part of this statement but not the second. Accord-

ing to nomological dualism, no mental event is

identical with any physical event, but there are

nevertheless psychophysical laws because, for ex-

ample, mental events are correlated with physical

events in some close and invariable way that falls

short of identity. Davidson rejects both parts of

this. According to anomalous dualism (or Carte-

sian dualism) no mental event is identical with any

physical event and there are no psychophysical

laws. Davidson accepts the second part of this but

not the first.

If there are no strictly deterministic psy-

chophysical laws then there is no physical expla-

nation of the mental. For example, it is not possi-

ble to predict someone’s mental state given a

complete knowledge of their physical state, or

even a complete knowledge of their present and

past physical states, or even a complete knowl-

edge of the prior state of the physical universe. If

there are no psychophysical laws then no mental

events may be subsumed under strictly determinis-

tic scientific generalizations.

If the mental is anomalous then room seems to

be left for human freedom. If there is no strict de-

terministic law relating one’s choices or decisions

to physical events then they are not necessitated

by physical events. Indeed, if one’s choices and

decisions may cause physical events then one’s

mental states are at least amongst the causes of

one’s own actions and, arguably, this is part of

what it means for a person to have free will, to be

an autonomous agent.

Supervenience

Davidson holds that the dependence of the mental

on the physical is very close. The mental is super-

venient on the physical. This means that if two

mental events differ in some mental respect then

they cannot only differ in that mental respect but

must differ in some physical respect. However, if

they differ in some physical respect it does not fol-

low that they differ in any mental respect.

The doctrine that some property F supervenes

on some property G is expressed by a cluster of

views, because the supervenience relation admits

of variants and degrees. First, if being F supervenes

on being G, then if two objects—a, b—are indis-

cernible with regard to being F, then they are in-

discernible with regard to being G. So, if the men-

tal supervenes on the physical then it is not

possible for two persons to be indiscernible with

regard to some mental property without being in-

discernible with regard to some physical property.

Second, if being F supervenes on being G,

then if a is F and b is exactly like a in being F,

then b is G. So, if two people share a mental prop-

erty then they share a physical property. Third, if

being F supervenes on being G, then a cannot

change with respect to being F without changing

with respect to being G. So a person cannot

change in any mental respect without changing in

some physical respect. It is unclear how much is

entailed by “without changing with respect to

being G”, but arguably if being F supervenes on

being G, then a cannot cease to be F without ceas-

ing to be G. In that case, a person cannot cease to

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posses a mental property without ceasing to pos-

sess a physical property. Also arguably if being F

supervenes on being G, then a cannot begin to be

F without beginning to be G. In that case a person

cannot gain a mental property without gaining a

physical property.

Weak supervenience is the doctrine that if in

the actual world a is F, then in the actual world a

is G. So if the mental is weakly supervenient on the

physical, then if a person has a mental property in

the actual world, then they have a physical prop-

erty in the actual world. Strong supervenience is

the doctrine that if in every possible world a is F,

then in every possible world a is G. So if the men-

tal is strongly supervenient on the physical, then if

a person has a mental property in every possible

world, then they have a physical property in every

possible world.

Arguments for supervenience are harder to

find than formulations. The supervenience of the

mental on the physical is designed to capture the

“intuition” that mental facts depend on physical

facts but physical facts do not depend on mental

facts. It also seems to promise dependence without

reduction: Mental events are not nomologically re-

ducible to physical events because there are no

psychophysical laws. Mental events are not logi-

cally reducible to physical events because it is not

true that any sentence or set of sentences about

mental events can be translated into a sentence or

set of sentences about physical events without loss

of meaning.

Even though the mental supervenes on the

physical there can be no hope of a reduction of

psychology to neurology in the way in which, ar-

guably, biology may be reduced to chemistry and

chemistry reduced to physics.

Epiphenomenalism and psychophysical laws

It is objected to anomalous monism, notably by

the Canadian philosopher Ted Honderich (b.

1933), that on this theory mental events do not

cause physical events “in virtue of” being mental

events but in virtue of being physical events. The

mental properties of the mental events are not

causally efficacious. Honderich points out that

some pears on a weighing scale depress the scale

in virtue of their physical property of being a cer-

tain weight, not in virtue of, say, being green. If

this sort of objection is right then in anomalous

monism the mental properties of mental events do

no causal work. Mental causation has not been ex-

plained because nothing mental qua mental is

causing anything physical.

Anomolous monism arguably collapses into a

kind of epiphenomenalism: the theory that mental

events are caused by physical events but physical

events are not caused by mental events. In reply it

might be urged that the sentence “Mental events

cause physical events” is true according to anom-

alous monism because mental events cause physi-

cal events because they are identical with physical

events that cause physical events.

It has been argued, notably by Honderich in

his A Theory of Determinism (1988), that the neu-

rological is sufficient for the mental: The occur-

rence of some neurological event is a sufficient

condition for the occurrence of some psychologi-

cal event and, as is logically entailed by this, the

occurrence of that psychological event is a neces-

sary condition for the occurrence of that neurolog-

ical event. On this view there seems to be no rea-

son in principle why psychophysical laws should

not be discovered because true sentences about

neurology would entail true sentences about psy-

chological events. It ought then to be possible to

predict the occurrence of psychological events

from knowledge of neurological events.

It is empirically uncontroversial in the case of

human beings (if not souls, computers, and

deities) that the neurological is necessary for the

mental. Neurological impairment leads to psycho-

logical impairment. If the neurological is necessary

for the mental, then the mental is sufficient for the

neurological. Arguably the dependency of the

mental on the neurological is ultimately an empir-

ical and contingent one. If computers, souls, or

God have mentality but no neurology, then it is

not a necessary truth that the mental depends on

the neurological.

Karl Popper (1902–1993) has argued that the

self-conscious mind is an evolutionary product of

the brain that nevertheless acts causally upon it.

However, if mental events are sufficient for neuro-

logical events and if the physical universe is a

closed deterministic system, then neurological

events are overdetermined. Some event is overde-

termined if at least two conditions sufficient for its

occurrence obtain. This would seem to make

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either mental causes or neurological causes redun-

dant. If a neurological event is sufficient for the oc-

currence of a neurological event then no mental

event is necessary for it. If a mental event is suffi-

cient for a neurological event then no neurological

event is necessary for it.

One solution, adopted by the contemporary

English philosophers Tim Crane and D. H. Mellor

for example, is to give up the assumption that the

universe is a closed deterministic system. Crane

and Mellor see no reason in principle why there

should not exist psychophysical laws as scientifi-

cally respectable as physical laws.

See also CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES; DESCARTES, RENÉ;

ETERMINISM; EXPERIENCE, RELIGIOUS: COGNITIVE

AND

NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS;

UNCTIONALISM; MIND-BODY THEORIES;

EUROSCIENCES; SUPERVENIENCE

Bibliography

Block, Ned. “Can the Mind Change the World?” In Mean-

ing and Method: Essays in Honor of Hilary Putnam,

ed. G. Boolos. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University

Press, 1990.

Charles, David, and Lennon, Kathleen, eds. Reduction,

Explanation and Realism. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1992.

Crane, Tim, and Mellor, D. H. “There is No Question of

Physicalism.” Mind 99, no. 394 (1990): 185–206.

Davidson, Donald. Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1980.

Haugeland, John. “Phenomenal Causes.” Southern Jour-

nal of Philosophy 22, suppl. (1983): 63-70.

Heil, John, and Mele, Alfred. “Mental Causes.” American

Philosophical Quarterly 28 (1991): 61-71.

Heil, John, and Mele, Alfred, eds. Mental Causation. Ox-

ford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Honderich, Ted. “The Argument for Anomalous Monism.”

Analysis 42 (1982): 59–64.

Honderich, Ted. A Theory of Determinism: The Mind,

Neuroscience, and Life-Hopes. Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 1988.

Hornsby, Jennifer. “Which Mental Events are Physical

Events?” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81

(1981): 73-92.

Kim, Jaegwon. “Concepts of Supervenience.” Philosophy

and Phenomenological Research 65 (1984): 153-176.

Kim, Jaegwon. “Causality, Identity, and Supervenience in

the Mind-body Problem.” Midwest Studies in Philoso-

phy 4 (1979): 31-49.

LePore, Ernest, and McLaughlin, Brian P., eds. Action and

Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald

Davidson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985.

Popper, Karl, and Eccles, John. The Self and Its Brain.

Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1977.

Priest, Stephen. Theories of the Mind. Boston: Houghton

Mifflin, 1991.

Smith, Peter. “Anomalous Monism and Epiphenomenalism:

A Reply to Honderich.” Analysis 44 (1984): 83–86.

STEPHEN PRIEST

MIRACLE

In order to differentiate between the customary

way in which God acts and his special miraculous

action, theologians have traditionally distinguished

his providentia ordinaria from the providentia ex-

traordinaria, the latter being identified with mira-

cles. Since the dawning of modernity, miracles

have been widely understood to be “violations of

the laws of nature.” But so long as laws of nature

are taken to be universal inductive generalizations,

the notion of a violation of a law of nature is inco-

herent, since such statements must take account of

everything that happens, so that exceptions to

them are impossible. Although this fact led some

Enlightenment philosophers to think that miracles

can thus be defined out of existence, it ought

rather to alert one to the defectiveness of the mod-

ern definition. Natural laws have implicit ceteris

paribus conditions, so that a law states what is the

case under the assumption of certain ideal condi-

tions. If God brings about some event that a law of

nature fails to predict or describe, such an event

cannot be characterized as a violation of that law,

since the law is valid only on the assumption that

no supernatural factors come into play.

Miracles, then, are better defined as naturally

impossible events, that is to say, events that cannot

be produced by the natural causes (i.e., those de-

scribed by physics) operative at a certain time and

place. Whether an event is a miracle is thus relative

to a time and place. Of course, some events may

be absolutely miraculous in that they are at every

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time and place beyond the productive capacity of

natural causes.

Possibility of miracles

What could conceivably transform an event that is

naturally impossible into a real historical event?

Clearly, the answer is the personal God of theism.

For if a transcendent, personal creator exists, then

this God could cause events in the universe that

could not be produced by causes within the uni-

verse. Given a God who created the universe, who

conserves the world in being, and who is capable

of acting freely, miracles are evidently possible.

A widespread assumption persists that if his-

torical inquiry is to be feasible, then one must

adopt a sort of methodological naturalism as a fun-

damental historiographical principle. This view-

point is a restatement of Ernst Troeltsch’s principle

of analogy, which states that the past does not dif-

fer essentially from the present. Though events of

the past are, of course, not the same events as

those of the present, they must be the same in

kind if historical investigation is to be possible.

Troeltsch realized that any history written on this

principle will be skeptical with regard to the his-

toricity of miracles.

Theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, however,

has persuasively argued that Troeltsch’s principle

of analogy cannot be legitimately employed to

banish from the realm of history all non-analogous

events. Properly defined, analogy means that in a

situation that is unclear, the facts ought to be un-

derstood in terms of known experience; but

Troeltsch has elevated the principle to constrict all

past events to purely natural events. But that an

event bursts all analogies cannot be used to dis-

pute its historicity. Troeltsch’s formulation of the

principle of analogy destroys genuine historical

reasoning, since the historian must be open to the

uniqueness of the events of the past and cannot

exclude events a priori simply because they do not

conform to present experience. When myths, leg-

ends, illusions, and the like are dismissed as un-

historical, it is not because they are non-analogous,

but because they are analogous to present forms

of consciousness having no objective referent.

When an event is said to have occurred for which

no analogy exists, its reality cannot be automati-

cally dismissed; to do this one would require an

analogy to some known form of consciousness

lacking an objective referent that would suffice to

explain the situation. Pannenberg has thus up-

ended Troeltsch’s principle of analogy such that it

is not the want of an analogy that shows an event

to be unhistorical, but the presence of a positive

analogy to known thought forms that shows a pur-

portedly miraculous event to be unhistorical. In

this way, the lack of an analogy to present experi-

ence says nothing for or against the historicity of

an event. Pannenberg’s formulation of the princi-

ple preserves the analogous nature of the past to

the present or to the known, thus making the in-

vestigation of history possible, without thereby

sacrificing the integrity of the past or distorting it.

Identification of miracles

The question remains whether the identification of

any event as a miracle is possible. On the one

hand, it might be argued that a convincing demon-

stration that a purportedly miraculous event has

occurred would only succeed in forcing the revi-

sion of natural law so as to accommodate the event

in question. But a natural law is not abolished be-

cause of one exception; the anomaly must occur

repeatedly whenever the conditions for it are pres-

ent. If an event occurs that is anomalous and there

are reasons to believe that this event would not

occur again under similar circumstances, then the

law in question will not be abandoned.

On the other hand, it might be urged that if a

purportedly miraculous event were demonstrated

to have occurred, one should conclude that the

event occurred in accordance with unknown natu-

ral laws. What serves to distinguish a genuine mir-

acle from a mere scientific anomaly? Here the reli-

gio-historical context of the event becomes crucial.

A miracle without a context is inherently ambigu-

ous. But if a purported miracle occurs in a signifi-

cant religio-historical context, then the chances of

its being a genuine miracle are increased. For ex-

ample, if the miracles occur at a momentous time

and do not recur regularly in history, and if the

miracles are numerous and various, then the

chances of their being the result of some unknown

natural causes are reduced. Moreover, some mira-

cles (e.g., the resurrection of Jesus) so exceed what

is known of the productive capacity of natural

causes that they could only be reasonably attrib-

uted to a supernatural cause. Thus, while it is dif-

ficult to know in many cases whether a genuine

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miracle has occurred, that does not imply pes-

simism with respect to all cases.

See also DIVINE ACTION; GOD; NATURALISM; LAWS OF

NATURE; PROVIDENCE; SPECIAL DIVINE ACTION;

PECIAL PROVIDENCE; SPIRITUALITY AND FAITH

HEALING;

Bibliography

Earman, John. “Bayes, Hume, and Miracles.” Faith and

Philosophy 10 (1993): 293–310.

Freddoso, Alfred J. “The Necessity of Nature.” Midwest

Studies in Philosophy 11 (1986): 215–242.

Geivett, R. Douglas, and, Habermas, Gary R. In Defense of

Miracles. Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997.

Hume, David. “Of Miracles.” In Enquiries Concerning

Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles

of Morals (1777), 3rd edition, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge

and P. H. Midditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. “Redemptive Event and History.” In

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Basic Questions in Theology, 2

vols., trans. G. H. Kehm. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970.

Swinburne, Richard. The Concept of Miracle. New York:

Macmillan, 1970.

Swinburne, Richard, ed. Miracles: Philosophical Topics.

New York: Macmillan, 1989.

Troeltsch, Ernst. “Über historische und dogmatische Meth-

ode in der Theologie.” In Gesammelte Schriften.

Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr, 1913.

WILLIAM LANE CRAIG

MISSING LINK

The term missing link refers to an idea derived in

a fairly obvious manner from the “Great Chain of

Being”: a concept, much beloved of medieval

scholars and theologians that traces its roots back

to Aristotle. According to this notion of an inherent

organismic Scala Naturae, all living creatures are

ranked (or occupy positions) from “lower” to

“higher,” with humans, the crowning glory of cre-

ation, at the top (though between humans and

God lie angels, archangels, and other spiritual be-

ings). This archaic terminology still survives in

some areas of science today, with vertebrates, for

instance, continuing to be classified by many as

“lower” (fish, amphibians, reptiles) versus “higher”

(birds, mammals).

The metaphor of a chain of being, with its low-

est members connected to the highest by an in-

sensible gradation of intermediate forms, naturally

adapts to the notion of a series of links. Thus in

pre-Darwinian times it was widely held that every

species must represent a link in this chain, just as

it occupied its own preordained place in nature;

some mid-nineteenth century naturalists, though,

working in a world whose immensity and diversity

were already becoming recognized, vaguely envis-

aged the eventual discovery of a complete set of

living intermediates. With the advent of the notion

of evolution by natural selection propounded by

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and his younger con-

temporary Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) in

1858, and influentially enlarged upon by the for-

mer in On the Origin of Species in 1859, interpreta-

tion of the fossil record, already long known, as-

sumed a new dimension. Earlier western scholars

had tended to the view that the ancient fossil or-

ganisms, often very different from those familiar in

the modern world, were best interpreted as victims

of the Noachian flood—or, in view of the evidently

complex stratigraphy involved, as witnesses to a

series of “catastrophes” for which biblical authority

was sought. With the introduction of the concept

of evolution, an alternative explanation was at

hand: that extinct organisms represent stages along

the route through time from ancestral forms to the

modern biota.

From this point it was but a short leap to the

notion of ancient “missing links” in the chain. In

popular lore the most famous of these lies between

apes and humans, and many fossils have been ac-

claimed in this intermediate role. Darwin had em-

phasized in his Descent of Man (1871) that today’s

humans and apes are descended from nothing like

an existing ape or monkey, but from a common

ancestor (which, by definition, can be neither).

Still, the half-human, half-ape image, of a form

caught in the act of clawing its way up toward hu-

manity, seized the public imagination, and even

that of scientists. Among the latter the influential

Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) went so far as to name

this hypothetical form Pithecanthropus alalus (the

“ape-man lacking speech”).

It is useless for paleoanthropologists to protest

that if a form is missing, it cannot be a link, and

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that if it is to be a link, it cannot be missing. It is

well known now that it is far more accurate to

speak in terms of a ramifying bush of ancestors

and descendants than of links in a chain. But it will

be a long time before we are able to exorcise the

evocative “missing link” from our vocabularies.

See also EVOLUTION, HUMAN

Bibliography

Loewe, L., and Scherer, S. “Mitochondrial Eve: The Plot

Thickens.” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12,

no. 11 (1997): 422–423.

MICHAEL RUSE

MODELS

Models are widely used in many disciplines to turn

complex or abstract information or ideas into a

form that is more easily understood and workable,

basically as representations of the information or

ideas. A scale model is an actual construction that

resembles the original object. Models using anal-

ogy or mathematical logic display varying degrees

of abstraction. Of the many types of models, sev-

eral are commonly used in science and theology,

though there are differences in their applications in

each discipline.

In the natural sciences, the use of models gen-

erally implies the idea of interpretation of a de-

ductive system, carried over from mathematical

logic. Scale models and analogues are also com-

monly used, whether similar in substance to the

thing modeled or similar in the relations between

its parts. Formal analogies show analogy of struc-

ture between the model and the system modeled.

Material analogies show material similarities be-

tween the original system and its model, such as in

replicas. Mary Hesse notes that the relation of anal-

ogy—formal or material—implies differences, de-

noted as negative analogy, as well as similarities,

called positive analogy. The billiard ball model of

gases offers both positive and negative analogy.

From the early part of the twentieth century on,

there have been debates over whether models are

essential to successful theorizing in the sciences or

whether the use of such models is potentially mis-

leading and dispensable.

In theology, models may be utilized in order to

better understand doctrines such as the relation be-

tween God and the world, as well as doctrines of

God or theological anthropology. In the history of

theology, it has usually been the practice to speak

in terms of analogy or metaphor, tropes of lan-

guage that serve as a type of “momentary” model.

By contrast, Sallie McFague defines models as

metaphors with “staying power.”

In discussions about the relation between reli-

gion and science over the last third of the twenti-

eth century and into the early twenty-first, the use

of models has played a highly significant role. Dif-

ferent epistemological models show how the mod-

ern period has described knowledge of the world

and the status of models in scientific theorizing.

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These include naïve realism (the model is a literal

picture of reality), logical positivism (theories are

directly deducible from data, dismissing models),

utilitarianism (models are useful fictions), and

critical realism (models are representations of re-

ality in interaction with the observer). It is the last

that has dominated discussions of the relation be-

tween religion and science. By the 1980s, other

epistemological models began to be proposed.

Challenges to standard interpretations of critical re-

alism have been raised in the light of develop-

ments of the late twentieth and early twenty-first

centuries. These challenges include postmodern

critiques of foundationalism, “science and technol-

ogy studies” that have expanded upon Thomas

Kuhn’s concept of paradigm in The Structure of

Scientific Revolutions (1962) as well as feminist

and postcolonial critiques and writings in the soci-

ology of knowledge.

Models are also used in the science and reli-

gion dialogue and serve to show how relations be-

tween religion and science have been conceived.

Most widely used of this kind of modeling is the

four-fold typology of Ian Barbour: conflict, inde-

pendence, dialogue, and integration. Models that

include historical examples have come under criti-

cism by historians, who point out that models give

only a partial picture. Many argue that misunder-

standings occur because models may oversimplify

the historical situation. Many recent studies exam-

ine and elaborate upon the complexity of the so-

cial and political situations that bear upon the per-

ception of a conflict between religion and science.

See also METAPHOR; PARADIGMS; SCIENCE AND

RELIGION, METHODOLOGIES; SCIENCE AND

RELIGION, MODELS AND RELATIONS

Bibliography

Barbour, Ian. Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Compara-

tive Study in Science and Religion. New York:

Harper, 1974.

Gregersen, Niels Henrik, and Van Huyssteen, J. Wentzel,

eds. Rethinking Theology and Science: Six Models for

the Current Dialogue. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerd-

mans, 1998.

Ferré, Frederick. “Mapping the Logic of Models in Science

and Theology.” Christian Scholar 46, no. 1 (1963):

9–39.

Hesse, Mary B. Models and Analogies in Science. Notre

Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966.

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

(1962), 3rd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1996.

McFague, Sallie. Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in

Religious Language. Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress, 1982.

LOU ANN G. TROST

MODERNITY

The terms modern and modernity have been

widely used in the expression of two contrasting

perspectives. They either (1) suggest that certain

new habits, practices, or worldviews are inferior to

those of ancient, medieval, or classical times and

origins; or (2) they claim the superiority of these

habits, practices, or worldviews, ascribing a posi-

tive meaning to their being new, up to date, fash-

ionable, progressive, or evolutionarily successful.

It is typical of the latter perspective that the

emphasis has been on “current” developments and

on “the present,” and that contrasts such as primi-

tive, old, antiquated, obsolete, as well as terms

with the prefix pre (e.g., premodern, preindustrial),

have been used. This perspective is applied to the

most recent social, literary, and aesthetic develop-

ments, and it leads to an ideology of permanent

qualitative progress.

A major shift between these two views of

modernity is marked by the controversy called the

Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes (Quarrel of

the Ancients and the Moderns; a title derived from

the writings of Charles Perrault), which began in

England and France in 1687 and lasted for about a

century. In this long debate several philosophers of

the Enlightenment questioned the superiority of

antiquity, its arts and values. They thus paved the

way for the self-privileging of modernity over the

other epochs of human history.

The term modernity also designates an epoch

in human history that is characterized by the emer-

gence of nation states that build on the political

loyalty of their citizens, develop standardizations of

the law, and establish legal institutions and bureau-

cratic forms of administration. Such nation states

permit and even encourage public deliberation

about the common social order, the common good,

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and the common goals. This development is con-

nected to a consolidation of knowledge through in-

stitutionalized education and with strategies to ac-

quire knowledge systematically by cultivating the

“sciences.” The political, educational, and scientific

processes develop along with an industrial society

that by the technological application of scientific

knowledge generates a constant transformation of

its natural and cultural environments.

Modernity as historical epoch

Since these developments have not occurred si-

multaneously across the globe, the localization of

modernity in space and time is difficult to deter-

mine and remains open to debate. The Reforma-

tion is often designated, even in secular circles, as

the breeding ground of typically modern mentali-

ties. Modernity is also usually associated with the

age of “enlightened thinking” that shaped Europe

and North America from the second half of the

eighteenth century on. During this period, the

French revolution and the philosophy of Immanuel

Kant (1724–1804) became the most important

sources for political and intellectual ideas. During

the last decades of the twentieth century, an ongo-

ing international debate about the end of moder-

nity set in, with Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

acting as an early prophet of “postmodernism.”

The postmodern period is fuelled by the growing

conviction that modernity’s faith in the unity of

reason and the rationality continuum was illusion,

and by uncertainties about the future of nation

states in the process of globalization.

The ambivalences of modernity

Whereas modernity can be regarded as an en-

deavor to escape religious and political tyranny

and authoritarian traditionalism, it has itself be-

come a metaphor for a deeply ambivalent global

enterprise. The striving for liberation, the estab-

lishment of a public legal system, mandatory edu-

cation for all people, and the development of wel-

fare systems within the nation state were all

aspects of the modern enterprise. The same

modernity that fled the tyrannies of the past and

strove for the unity of the state, the rule of law in

political life, and political sovereignty based on the

will of the people (democratization) also brought

forth aggressive nation states characterized by

chauvinism, imperialism, colonialism, and ecologi-

cal brutality. Similarly, the escape from prescien-

tific and even mythical worldviews, the striving for

a consolidation of knowledge through the sci-

ences, the search for scientific truth, and the ap-

peal to rationality and reason led to more than the

triumph of public education and the flourishing of

discovery and technological innovation. It also led

to scientistic and naturalistic ideologies that pro-

moted blindness to religious truths and cultural

complexity.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) offered a

subtle analysis of how the unfolding and the tri-

umph of scientific thinking shaped the modern

common sense, its modes of experience and ex-

pectation, and how it correlated with a relative de-

formation of aesthetic, ethical, and religious expe-

rience. According to Whitehead, “The modern

world has lost God and is seeking him” (1960,

p.72). The process of modernization finally led to

the dominance of science-assisted technical reason

(industrialization) and to the triumph of the powers

of the market, the media, and technology—devel-

opments that have turned out to be culturally im-

perialistic and ecologically destructive.

Ambivalence over the blessings or curses of

modernity is rooted in a structural conflict within

modernity itself, which has lead to the deeply neg-

ative connotations associated with the term moder-

nity. The conflict is usually spelled out by the dual

of “modernity” and “postmodernity.” It is also pres-

ent in the ongoing discussion of whether post-

modernity is merely an extension of modernity, a

self-jeopardizing of the modern enterprise that

would be better identified as late modernity.

On the one hand, modernity strives for the

freedom of the person, the equality of all human

beings, and for the universality of reason. Moder-

nity’s fight for justice and equality, and against

tyranny, is connected with a passion for universal

transparency and unity. For the modern mind,

unity means consensus, mutual understanding, and

harmony based on equality. On the other hand,

modern societies have developed a multisystemic

texture as modernity brought forth a differentia-

tion of social institutions, sciences, and rationali-

ties—differentiations that resist the plea for an

overarching universal unity. Modernity thus cre-

ated an ongoing conflict between unity and differ-

entiation: a passion for unified reason, a universal

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MODERNITY

— 581—

rationality-continuum, and universal morality on

the one hand, and a passion for differentiation of

social systems, differentiation of the sciences, and

a nonhierarchical differentiation of cultural spheres

on the other hand.

Several social systems work for the sustenance

and the wellbeing of the whole society. Such sys-

tems include, for example, politics, law, religion,

education, the sciences, the market, the media,

technology, the arts, and the family. In this multi-

systemic order each system performs a function

that is essential and indispensable for the whole

society. At the same time each system strives for

autonomy and defends itself against interference

from other systems. Each system optimizes its pro-

cedures, its rationalities, and its institutional forms.

Along with the differentiation of the social systems,

modern societies developed a rich texture of asso-

ciations, such as political parties, ideological move-

ments, and a variety of clubs and lobbies, all of

which attempt to influence, strengthen, or question

and reshape the “division of powers” within social

systems. The universal and even grandiose claims

of such associations grow out of the interests and

goals of their members. Some associations perish

quickly, while others have a long life. Some are

normatively and institutionally stable, others are

open to trends. These associations, which want to

influence and actually do influence social systems,

make up civil society. The complex, but by no

means chaotic, interaction between social systems

and civil associations constitutes so-called pluralis-

tic society, which provides a structured and plural-

istic setting for the sciences and other cultural for-

mations, a setting that promises to cope with the

inner conflicts of modernity.

Modernity and postmodernity

The structured pluralism of modern societies and

cultures has brought a differentiation of rationali-

ties: for example, those of the market, of the natu-

ral sciences, of historical investigation, of religion,

and of common sense. This differentiation has

challenged the modern ideal of the universal unity

of knowledge and of mutual moral communica-

tion and understanding. Yet with its multisystemic

setting it has also challenged the idea of an endless

and relativistic differentiation and dissociation, an

idea often connected with postmodernity. These

multisystemic settings appear in many areas of life,

although the question of how many social systems

there are and how they should be differentiated re-

mains open to debate. But certainly their number

is finite and small, and the evolution of a new sys-

tem takes a long time, as evidenced, for example,

by the development of the media during the nine-

teenth and twentieth centuries. The same holds

true for differentiation in the sciences or for the

family of confessions in Christianity, which consti-

tute the pluralism of the academy and the plural-

ism of the ecumene. The world is much more com-

plex than the typical modern mind is willing to

admit, but it is much less chaotic than those who

hope to exorcise the spirits of postmodernity

would have it.

The one clear difference that divides moder-

nity and postmodernity is reflected in many areas

and on many different levels: This is the difference

between the highest value and the interpretation of

this value in both epochs. For modernity, the value

of unity is paramount. For postmodernity, the

value of difference is crucial. This, of course,

includes different understandings and interpreta-

tions of unity and difference on both sides. For

the typical modern mind, difference meant con-

flict, disagreement, inequality, or even oppression.

For the postmodern mind, however, difference

means freedom and creative engagement, while

unity raises suspicions of adaptation, control, and

even oppression. The postmodern mind would

nevertheless acknowledge that not all forms of

difference are creative and helpful. One must dif-

ferentiate between the differences and recognize

that some can be destructive. The postmodern

mind would also welcome differentiated forms

of unity. But all forms of unity have to allow for

difference, have to appreciate and even treasure

difference. Otherwise they breed oppressive

ideologies.

The postmodern mindset is not simply based

on some Nietzschean philosophical idea. Numer-

ous cultural and scientific achievements, along with

many experiences of oppression and pain, have

led to the conviction and to the affirmation that the

world is poly-contextual. Society must welcome

multiperspectival approaches and should embrace

and cultivate pluralistic settings if it wants to main-

tain the modern striving for truth, justice, and dig-

nity. Different cultures, different traditions, and dif-

ferent rationalities have to be taken seriously.

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MONISM

— 582—

Moreover, the human individual has to be taken

much more seriously than modernity thought.

Modernity praised the value of the theoretical

“human subject” and its autonomy, freedom, and

rational self-control, but it failed to address the ac-

tual unique individual. Rather, modernity had in

mind the idealized, standardized person of the

bourgeois value system: the autonomous “subject,”

guided by reason and universal morals. But con-

crete human beings are much more subtle and

complex. They are determined by unique personal

histories, by complex biological endowments, by

intricate passions and feelings, and by different

forms of rationality. Some are more impressed by

religion than others; some are devoted to the nat-

ural sciences, while others are skeptical of them.

Some find their key values in family and friend-

ship; others look for a more general orientation for

the common good. The young Friedrich Schleier-

macher (1768–1834) recognized the problems in

the modern concept of the human person, and he

accused Kant of having standardized modern sub-

jectivity and of having attributed too much power

to reason. Schleiermacher called for a new con-

ception of individualism, one that takes each mul-

tifarious human person seriously—a sort of poly-

individualism. In this respect, however, modernity

itself provides possibilities for escape and for cor-

recting its own reductionistic anthropological con-

cepts. “All in all, resistance to rationalization has

been as prominent a mark of modernity as has ra-

tionalization itself” (Bauman, p. 596).

See also POSTMODERNISM; POSTMODERN SCIENCE

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MICHAEL WELKER

MONISM

The term monism comes from the Greek word

meaning alone or single. While the term was orig-

inally used by German mathematician and philoso-

pher Christian Wolff (1679–1754) to refer to views

asserting either that everything is mental (idealism)

or everything is material (materialism), monism has

wider applicability today, claiming that the various

things or kinds of things encountered in the world

are somehow reducible to, derivable from, or ex-

plicable in terms of one thing (substantival

monism) or one kind of thing (attributive monism).

The substantival and attributive views are logically

independent—e.g., Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677)

affirmed the first while holding a plurality of at-

tributes; Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716)

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